


The Dangers of Board Games

by storm_8



Series: Joys of Motherhood [57]
Category: Women's Murder Club (TV)
Genre: Board Games, F/F, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 11:37:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storm_8/pseuds/storm_8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had been raining non-stop for almost four days, which meant that on Saturday when the two girls and their mothers were spending the day with Claire and Ed, it did not take long before the board games were brought out and bickering over ancient rules and accusations of cheating reporters started flying around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dangers of Board Games

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the show or its characters. I merely borrow them for everyone's enjoyment.  
> I do own the original characters: I am quite fond of them!  
> All mistakes are mine.

It had been raining non-stop for almost four days and school had been cancelled Thursday and Friday due to numerous leaks in classrooms and a flooded gymnasium. Ashley and Lily couldn’t have been happier, for it meant not having to brave the elements and walk into school soaking wet only to have the ceiling start dropping water on your head as well.

There had also been a few blackouts already, which meant that on Saturday when the two girls and their mothers were spending the day with Claire and Ed, it did not take long before the board games were brought out and bickering over ancient rules and accusations of cheating reporters started flying around.

10 month old Tyler sat in uncle Ed’s lap and had been rather entertained with his blonde mother’s wild gesticulations, aunt Lindsay’s scowling and aunt Cindy’s huffing and puffing. But after barely half an hour, Ashley and Lily had become too aggravated and wheeled their uncle away, leaving their two mothers, Jill and Claire to their games.

Denise just threw them an amused look as she saw them approaching. She had been wise enough to refuse any and all invites to join the games and had instead settled comfortably on the couch to read her book.

“Some things really don’t change, no matter how many years pass…” Ed noted as he passed his babbling nephew to Ashley and manoeuvred himself onto the couch.

“They’re worse than us…” Ashley commented as Tyler playfully slapped at her face with his hands. She puffed out her cheeks, causing the boy to laugh and then puff out his cheeks as well.

Lily giggled at their antics and threw herself onto the couch, half landing on Denise and unceremoniously taking the book from her hands. “Watch’a reading?” The woman scowled. “ _A Short History of Nearly Everything_ … Hummm, does it explain the origins and history of how womankind evolved into _that_?” The girl pointed toward the dinning room table where the Jenga tower had just gone crashing down, much to Lindsay’s delight and Jill’s horror.

“ _NO_! This is not possible!!” The blonde argued, pointing the brick still in her hand towards a grinning reporter. “I know you hit the table just as I was pulling this out!!

“ _I did not_!” Cindy defended, scowling at her friend.

Lindsay just kept on laughing, while Claire grinned widely and collected the fallen wooden pieces.

Denise sighed in dismay as the brick in her lover’s hand went flying at the inspector’s head and looked at her niece. “No, it does not explain it. It’s still one of the great, unsolved mysteries of the Universe.”

Ed chuckled from behind his sports magazine, Lily giggling and handing the book back to her aunt, before rolling off the couch to join her sister and cousin on the floor.

Tyler was crawling back and forth on the rug, chasing an equally crawling Martha and trying to grab the dog’s wagging tail. Martha was beyond amused as she made her way towards a laughing Ashley, who was lying on the floor and watching the little boy babble tunefully and make grabby hands toward the Border Collie.

“Hey Tyler. Can you say ‘dog’? Maybe then Martha will let you grab her tail…” The redhead teen said, trying to give Martha a reprieve from her gleeful stalker.

The little boy stopped his movements at the sound of his name and turned to look at his cousin. Martha took his distraction as an opportunity to move away from the baby and climb onto Ashley and settle on her back, much to the brunette’s amusement. “Awww, Martha. You running away from the crazy baby?” The girl reached a hand over her shoulder with a grin, scratching the dog’s snout in affection.

Tyler looked at them with a scrunched up face, before deciding that Lily’s smiling face was more interesting and crawling towards her.

Sitting on her knees, the 15 year old watched him approach and then pat her thigh repeatedly and babble unintelligibly. The boy looked up at her momentarily before rolling onto his back and raising his feet in the air, blurting out something resembling a “Hi!”.

Lily smiled down at him and tickled his belly. “Hi, cutie. So, how about it? Can you say ‘dog’? _Dog_ …”

The boy just puffed out his cheeks and grabbed one of his own feet to play with his fluffy blue sock.

The girl laughed at his antics, just as there was a slight commotion from the dinning table, followed by Lindsay hollering “ _You cheater_!!” at Jill and a handful of domino pieces being flung across the room.

******

 

Lily watched her aunt pour the cut up apple and strawberries into the blender with a speculative look. She then glanced at the bananas she had just cut into slices and made a face. “Are you really going to mush all this up?”

Denise turned to her and held out a hand for the bowl with the bananas. “Yes…”

“It’s gonna be _mush_! Tyler likes mush?” The girl asked with a dubious frown, handing the bowl over.

The attorney smiled amusedly. “He enjoys his ‘mush’ just fine, don’t worry. In fact, if I remember correctly, so did you…”

Lily opened her mouth to respond when they heard shouting from the living room, followed by Tyler’s unmistakable belly laugh. They both poked their heads out the kitchen to see the little boy crawling under the dinning table to grab the fallen green plastic Monopoly houses, Ashley diving frantically after him. The brunette managed to jostle her mother’s chair, almost sending the reporter sprawling to the floor, in her haste to prevent her little cousin from swallowing the small pieces.

“Ashley!!” Cindy shouted over Jill’s and Lindsay’s yelling about stolen money and fraudulent businesses. “What are you doing?!” She grabbed onto the table for stability, as she felt her daughter groping her knee under the table and then banging an elbow against one of its legs.

“Tyler, come here!” The girl huffed, rubbing her elbow. “And give me those houses.” She shuffled closer to the laughing baby boy and scooped him up into her arms, prying the plastic toys from his fingers.

Ignoring the bickering lawyer and inspector, Cindy and Claire pushed their chairs back and ducked to look under the table.

“Boo! Boo!” Tyler greeted his two aunts, arms spread out and leaning away from his cousin toward an amused Claire.

“Hello, Tyler. What are you and Ashley doing down here?” The doctor asked with a chuckle.

The boy smiled wide and slapped his hands on his cousin’s cheeks. “Weee!” he squealed happily.

As the girl snorted in amusement and crawled from under the table with the boy in her arms, Lily turned to Denise with a wide grin. “He’s the most adorable baby ever! Even if he likes yucky, mushy fruit.”

The dark haired woman smiled proudly and then promptly rolled her eyes in utter dismay when Lindsay managed to knock the Monopoly box down, sending the paper money flying in every direction, in her attempt to reach over the table to smack Jill for her cheating and dishonest ways.

******

 

After his adventure under the dinning table, Tyler had parked himself on his butt in front of the coffee table and seemed to be having a very engaging conversation with Martha, while enthusiastically petting the dog’s head. Ashley stood with her hands on her hips, watching the interaction with a raised eyebrow, debating whether to intervene and save the Border Collie from her cousin’s spirited affections. The dog was taking it all in stride though, so the brunette let them be for the moment.

Back at the dinner table, Monopoly had been discarded in favour of Scrabble, because Claire had suggested it would cause less animosity amongst the players. She was fooling no one with her suggestion – Ed knew she was enjoying the spectacle that was unfolding as Cindy and Jill engaged in a war of words, both on the board and with each other – and the doctor was taking the opportunity to lay down some medical terminology that had everyone huffing and puffing about rules and the unfairness that was the use of job related jargon.

Lily and Denise emerged from the kitchen, the girl holding a bowl at arm’s length and staring very dubiously at its contents. “This- this… this doesn’t _look_ edible!”

Just then, there was a slight rumbling sound and the two teens looked to their little cousin who was frowning and rubbing his belly. “Pie!” He blurted out, looking around for his momma.

Denise chuckled at her two wide-eyed nieces. “A new word he’s learned recently.” She explained. “He’s become fond of using it, and other less articulate variations, to indicate he’s hungry. Ever since he found Jill all but stuffing herself with pie one night after dinner…”

Ed laughed from his place on the couch.

Lily giggled. “Aww, are you hungry Tyler? I have something for you…”

The boy babbled something unintelligible and then gurgled when Ashley sat down on the floor and held out her arms to him. “Come here, Ty.” He happily crawled into her lap and bounced around as she fastened his Lightning McQueen bib around his neck. The dark haired boy hummed to himself, lifting the bib to get a better look at the colourful car, basically pulling the cloth over his head.

Lily grinned in amusement, tickling his belly and laughing when he let out a startled squeak and dropped his bib to look at her with wide eyes. Ashley started chuckling at his expression and Tyler tilted his head back to look up at the girl, head thumping lightly against his cousin’s sternum. The brunette brought her head down to playfully kiss his nose and the boy let out a hearty laugh, raising his arms and slapping his hands against her cheeks with a smack.

Denise and Ed watched the children’s antics with mirth, firmly decided on ignoring the escalating war of words that was taking place at the dinner table. They purposely took no notice of Lindsay’s now permanent scowl being directed at Jill, or Cindy’s increasingly irked behaviour, as evidenced by the fire in her eyes and the darkening colour of her features that might soon match her hair, or Jill’s bared teeth or Claire’s amusement at the whole situation. They certainly did not acknowledge that the rule book might be lacking a page – or several – where it lay forgotten amidst the leaves of one of Claire’s potted plants (of all the places it could have landed in…) or that the Scrabble box might be teetering precariously on the edge of the table next to Jill’s right elbow, or that a few random pieces were lying on the floor.

No, the two adults sitting on the couch were quite content to simply listen to Lily make choo choo train noises as she brought the spoon with the fruit goop to Tyler’s mouth and watch as he opened his mouth wide and then clamped it shut over the spoon, only to end up with half his food smeared over his chubby face.

As the little boy chomped down on his food with gusto, Ashley kept her hands around his waist to keep him steady and as a measure of caution. More than once she’d had the toddler hurtling himself at her when she was feeding him his fruity goodness, only to end up with the slimy food all over her T-shirt.

However, little Tyler seemed quite happy to sit still and keep his small hands wrapped around his cousin’s fingers, while Lily cleaned the smeared food from his face with a giggle and then brought another spoonful of sweet, mushy fruit for him to happily munch on.

That is, until a rather loud exclamation came from the dinner table and disrupted the whole process.

“You can’t use that word, Jill! This is not the time for your horny self to make an unwelcome appearance! This is a serious game!” Cindy argued heatedly, including wild gesticulations and a laser-like glare for emphasis.

“Of course I can use it!” Jill shouted right back. “If you can write ‘Bob’ I sure as hell can add another ‘o’ to it and write ‘boob’; it’s perfectly logical and has nothing to do with being horny!”

Denise stared in slight horror at the two women and then absolutely lost her cool when amidst the increasing volume of the two arguing friends, Tyler decided to apply his recently acquired ability to form words to blurt out ‘boob’ in the loudest toddler shout he could manage (spewing a mouthful of mushy fruit at a scandalized looking Lily) and then started laughing really loudly in the stunned silence that followed.

“JILL!!!” The ADA hollered and flew off the couch like a shot. “What is wrong with you people?! Can you not play a _simple_ board game without it turning into a playground fight with hair pulling and sand throwing more appropriate for 4 year old children?!”

As luck would have it, amidst her irate tirade the attorney managed to accidentally knock down the Scrabble box – it landed on the floor with a loud crash and sent tiles in every possible direction – and to add insult to injury, Tyler blurted out “Boob!” again with a wide grin and sent Ashley into a fit of raucous laughter at the absolute nonsense of it all.


End file.
